This is the story of a man who did not appreciate his wife; also, of a
woman who did him too great an honor when she gave herself to him.
Incidentally, it concerns a Jesuit priest who had never been known to
lie. He was an appurtenance, and a very necessary one, to the Yukon
country; but the presence of the other two was merely accidental. They
were specimens of the many strange waifs which ride the breast of a
gold rush or come tailing along behind.
Edwin Bentham and Grace Bentham were waifs; they were also tailing
along behind, for the Klondike rush of '97 had long since swept down
the great river and subsided into the famine-stricken city of Dawson.
When the Yukon shut up shop and went to sleep under a three-foot
ice-sheet, this peripatetic couple found themselves at the Five Finger
Rapids, with the City of Gold still a journey of many sleeps to the
north.
Many cattle had been butchered at this place in the fall of the year,
and the offal made a goodly heap. The three fellow-voyagers of Edwin
Bentham and wife gazed upon this deposit, did a little mental
arithmetic, caught a certain glimpse of a bonanza, and decided to
remain. And all winter they sold sacks of bones and frozen hides to the
famished dog-teams. It was a modest price they asked, a dollar a pound,
just as it came. Six months later, when the sun came back and the Yukon
awoke, they buckled on their heavy moneybelts and journeyed back to the
Southland, where they yet live and lie mightily about the Klondike they
never saw.
But Edwin Bentham--he was an indolent fellow, and had he not been
possessed of a wife, would have gladly joined issued in the dog-meat
speculation. As it was, she played upon his vanity, told him how great
and strong he was, how a man such as he certainly was could overcome
all obstacles and of a surety obtain the Golden Fleece. So he squared
his jaw, sold his share in the bones and hides for a sled and one dog,
and turned his snowshoes to the north. Needless to state, Grace
Bentham's snowshoes never allowed his tracks to grow cold. Nay, ere
their tribulations had seen three days, it was the man who followed in
the rear, and the woman who broke trail in advance. Of course, if
anybody hove in sight, the position was instantly reversed. Thus did
his manhood remain virgin to the travelers who passed like ghosts on
the silent trail. There are such men in this world.
How such a man and such a woman came to take each other for better and
for worse is unimportant to this narrative. These things are familiar
to us all, and those people who do them, or even question them too
closely, are apt to lose a beautiful faith which is known as Eternal
Fitness.
Edwin Bentham was a boy, thrust by mischance into a man's body,--a boy
who could complacently pluck a butterfly, wing from wing, or cower in
abject terror before a lean, nervy fellow, not half his size. He was a
selfish cry-baby, hidden behind a man's mustache and stature, and
glossed over with a skin-deep veneer of culture and conventionality.
Yes; he was a clubman and a society man, the sort that grace social
functions and utter inanities with a charm and unction which is
indescribable; the sort that talk big, and cry over a toothache; the
sort that put more hell into a woman's life by marrying her than can
the most graceless libertine that ever browsed in forbidden pastures.
We meet these men every day, but we rarely know them for what they are.
Second to marrying them, the best way to get this knowledge is to eat
out of the same pot and crawl under the same blanket with them
for--well, say a week; no greater margin is necessary.
To see Grace Bentham, was to see a slender, girlish creature; to know
her, was to know a soul which dwarfed your own, yet retained all the
elements of the eternal feminine. This was the woman who urged and
encouraged her husband in his Northland quest, who broke trail for him
when no one was looking, and cried in secret over her weakling woman's
body.
So journeyed this strangely assorted couple down to old Fort Selkirk,
then through fivescore miles of dismal wilderness to Stuart River. And
when the short day left them, and the man lay down in the snow and
blubbered, it was the woman who lashed him to the sled, bit her lips
with the pain of her aching limbs, and helped the dog haul him to
Malemute Kid's cabin. Malemute Kid was not at home, but Meyers, the
German trader, cooked great moose-steaks and shook up a bed of fresh
pine boughs. Lake, Langham, and Parker, were excited, and not unduly so
when the cause was taken into account.
'Oh, Sandy! Say, can you tell a porterhouse from a round? Come out and
lend us a hand, anyway!' This appeal emanated from the cache, where
Langham was vainly struggling with divers quarters of frozen moose.
'Don't you budge from those dishes!' commanded Parker.
'I say, Sandy; there's a good fellow--just run down to the Missouri
Camp and borrow some cinnamon,' begged Lake.
'Oh! oh! hurry up! Why don't--' But the crash of meat and boxes, in the
cache, abruptly quenched this peremptory summons.
'Come now, Sandy; it won't take a minute to go down to the Missouri--'
'You leave him alone,' interrupted Parker. 'How am I to mix the
biscuits if the table isn't cleared off?'
Sandy paused in indecision, till suddenly the fact that he was
Langham's 'man' dawned upon him. Then he apologetically threw down the
greasy dishcloth, and went to his master's rescue.
These promising scions of wealthy progenitors had come to the Northland
in search of laurels, with much money to burn, and a 'man' apiece.
Luckily for their souls, the other two men were up the White River in
search of a mythical quartz-ledge; so Sandy had to grin under the
responsibility of three healthy masters, each of whom was possessed of
peculiar cookery ideas. Twice that morning had a disruption of the
whole camp been imminent, only averted by immense concessions from one
or the other of these knights of the chafing-dish. But at last their
mutual creation, a really dainty dinner, was completed.
Then they sat down to a three-cornered game of 'cut-throat,'--a
proceeding which did away with all casus belli for future hostilities,
and permitted the victor to depart on a most important mission.
This fortune fell to Parker, who parted his hair in the middle, put on
his mittens and bearskin cap, and stepped over to Malemute Kid's cabin.
And when he returned, it was in the company of Grace Bentham and
Malemute Kid,--the former very sorry her husband could not share with
her their hospitality, for he had gone up to look at the Henderson
Creek mines, and the latter still a trifle stiff from breaking trail
down the Stuart River.
Meyers had been asked, but had declined, being deeply engrossed in an
experiment of raising bread from hops.
Well, they could do without the husband; but a woman--why they had not
seen one all winter, and the presence of this one promised a new era in
their lives.
They were college men and gentlemen, these three young fellows,
yearning for the flesh-pots they had been so long denied. Probably
Grace Bentham suffered from a similar hunger; at least, it meant much
to her, the first bright hour in many weeks of darkness.
But that wonderful first course, which claimed the versatile Lake for
its parent, had no sooner been served than there came a loud knock at
the door.
'Oh! Ah! Won't you come in, Mr. Bentham?' said Parker, who had stepped
to see who the newcomer might be.
'Is my wife here?' gruffly responded that worthy.
'Why, yes. We left word with Mr. Meyers.' Parker was exerting his most
dulcet tones, inwardly wondering what the deuce it all meant. 'Won't
you come in? Expecting you at any moment, we reserved a place. And just
in time for the first course, too.' 'Come in, Edwin, dear,' chirped
Grace Bentham from her seat at the table.
Parker naturally stood aside.
'I want my wife,' reiterated Bentham hoarsely, the intonation savoring
disagreeably of ownership.
Parker gasped, was within an ace of driving his fist into the face of
his boorish visitor, but held himself awkwardly in check. Everybody
rose. Lake lost his head and caught himself on the verge of saying,
'Must you go?' Then began the farrago of leave-taking. 'So nice of
you--' 'I am awfully sorry' 'By Jove! how things did brighten--'
'Really now, you--'
'Thank you ever so much--' 'Nice trip to Dawson--' etc., etc.
In this wise the lamb was helped into her jacket and led to the
slaughter. Then the door slammed, and they gazed woefully upon the
deserted table.
'Damn!' Langham had suffered disadvantages in his early training, and
his oaths were weak and monotonous. 'Damn!' he repeated, vaguely
conscious of the incompleteness and vainly struggling for a more virile
term. It is a clever woman who can fill out the many weak places in an
inefficient man, by her own indomitability, re-enforce his vacillating
nature, infuse her ambitious soul into his, and spur him on to great
achievements. And it is indeed a very clever and tactful woman who can
do all this, and do it so subtly that the man receives all the credit
and believes in his inmost heart that everything is due to him and him
alone.
This is what Grace Bentham proceeded to do. Arriving in Dawson with a
few pounds of flour and several letters of introduction, she at once
applied herself to the task of pushing her big baby to the fore. It was
she who melted the stony heart and wrung credit from the rude barbarian
who presided over the destiny of the P. C. Company; yet it was Edwin
Bentham to whom the concession was ostensibly granted. It was she who
dragged her baby up and down creeks, over benches and divides, and on a
dozen wild stampedes; yet everybody remarked what an energetic fellow
that Bentham was. It was she who studied maps, and catechised miners,
and hammered geography and locations into his hollow head, till
everybody marveled at his broad grasp of the country and knowledge of
its conditions. Of course, they said the wife was a brick, and only a
few wise ones appreciated and pitied the brave little woman.
She did the work; he got the credit and reward. In the Northwest
Territory a married woman cannot stake or record a creek, bench, or
quartz claim; so Edwin Bentham went down to the Gold Commissioner and
filed on Bench Claim 23, second tier, of French Hill. And when April
came they were washing out a thousand dollars a day, with many, many
such days in prospect.
At the base of French Hill lay Eldorado Creek, and on a creek claim
stood the cabin of Clyde Wharton. At present he was not washing out a
diurnal thousand dollars; but his dumps grew, shift by shift, and there
would come a time when those dumps would pass through his sluice-boxes,
depositing in the riffles, in the course of half a dozen days, several
hundred thousand dollars. He often sat in that cabin, smoked his pipe,
and dreamed beautiful little dreams,--dreams in which neither the dumps
nor the half-ton of dust in the P. C. Company's big safe, played a part.
And Grace Bentham, as she washed tin dishes in her hillside cabin,
often glanced down into Eldorado Creek, and dreamed,--not of dumps nor
dust, however. They met frequently, as the trail to the one claim
crossed the other, and there is much to talk about in the Northland
spring; but never once, by the light of an eye nor the slip of a
tongue, did they speak their hearts.
This is as it was at first. But one day Edwin Bentham was brutal. All
boys are thus; besides, being a French Hill king now, he began to think
a great deal of himself and to forget all he owed to his wife. On this
day, Wharton heard of it, and waylaid Grace Bentham, and talked wildly.
This made her very happy, though she would not listen, and made him
promise to not say such things again. Her hour had not come.
But the sun swept back on its northern journey, the black of midnight
changed to the steely color of dawn, the snow slipped away, the water
dashed again over the glacial drift, and the wash-up began. Day and
night the yellow clay and scraped bedrock hurried through the swift
sluices, yielding up its ransom to the strong men from the Southland.
And in that time of tumult came Grace Bentham's hour.
To all of us such hours at some time come,--that is, to us who are not
too phlegmatic.
Some people are good, not from inherent love of virtue, but from sheer
laziness. But those of us who know weak moments may understand.
Edwin Bentham was weighing dust over the bar of the saloon at the
Forks--altogether too much of his dust went over that pine board--when
his wife came down the hill and slipped into Clyde Wharton's cabin.
Wharton was not expecting her, but that did not alter the case. And
much subsequent misery and idle waiting might have been avoided, had
not Father Roubeau seen this and turned aside from the main creek
trail. 'My child,--' 'Hold on, Father Roubeau! Though I'm not of your
faith, I respect you; but you can't come in between this woman and me!'
'You know what you are doing?' 'Know! Were you God Almighty, ready to
fling me into eternal fire, I'd bank my will against yours in this
matter.' Wharton had placed Grace on a stool and stood belligerently
before her.
'You sit down on that chair and keep quiet,' he continued, addressing
the Jesuit. 'I'll take my innings now. You can have yours after.'
Father Roubeau bowed courteously and obeyed. He was an easy-going man
and had learned to bide his time. Wharton pulled a stool alongside the
woman's, smothering her hand in his.
'Then you do care for me, and will take me away?' Her face seemed to
reflect the peace of this man, against whom she might draw close for
shelter.
'Dear, don't you remember what I said before? Of course I-' 'But how
can you?--the wash-up?' 'Do you think that worries? Anyway, I'll give
the job to Father Roubeau, here.
'I can trust him to safely bank the dust with the company.' 'To think
of it!--I'll never see him again.' 'A blessing!' 'And to go--O, Clyde,
I can't! I can't!' 'There, there; of course you can, just let me plan
it.--You see, as soon as we get a few traps together, we'll start,
and-' 'Suppose he comes back?' 'I'll break every-' 'No, no! No
fighting, Clyde! Promise me that.' 'All right! I'll just tell the men
to throw him off the claim. They've seen how he's treated you, and
haven't much love for him.'
'You mustn't do that. You mustn't hurt him.' 'What then? Let him come
right in here and take you away before my eyes?' 'No-o,' she half
whispered, stroking his hand softly.
'Then let me run it, and don't worry. I'll see he doesn't get hurt.
Precious lot he cared whether you got hurt or not! We won't go back to
Dawson. I'll send word down for a couple of the boys to outfit and pole
a boat up the Yukon. We'll cross the divide and raft down the Indian
River to meet them. Then--' 'And then?' Her head was on his shoulder.
Their voices sank to softer cadences, each word a caress. The Jesuit
fidgeted nervously.
'And then?' she repeated.
'Why we'll pole up, and up, and up, and portage the White Horse Rapids
and the Box Canon.' 'Yes?' 'And the Sixty-Mile River; then the lakes,
Chilcoot, Dyea, and Salt Water.' 'But, dear, I can't pole a boat.' 'You
little goose! I'll get Sitka Charley; he knows all the good water and
best camps, and he is the best traveler I ever met, if he is an Indian.
All you'll have to do, is to sit in the middle of the boat, and sing
songs, and play Cleopatra, and fight--no, we're in luck; too early for
mosquitoes.'
'And then, O my Antony?' 'And then a steamer, San Francisco, and the
world! Never to come back to this cursed hole again. Think of it! The
world, and ours to choose from! I'll sell out. Why, we're rich! The
Waldworth Syndicate will give me half a million for what's left in the
ground, and I've got twice as much in the dumps and with the P. C.
Company. We'll go to the Fair in Paris in 1900. We'll go to Jerusalem,
if you say so.
'We'll buy an Italian palace, and you can play Cleopatra to your
heart's content. No, you shall be Lucretia, Acte, or anybody your
little heart sees fit to become. But you mustn't, you really mustn't-'
'The wife of Caesar shall be above reproach.' 'Of course, but--' 'But I
won't be your wife, will I, dear?' 'I didn't mean that.' 'But you'll
love me just as much, and never even think--oh! I know you'll be like
other men; you'll grow tired, and--and-'
'How can you? I--' 'Promise me.' 'Yes, yes; I do promise.' 'You say it
so easily, dear; but how do you know?--or I know? I have so little to
give, yet it is so much, and all I have. O, Clyde! promise me you
won't?'
'There, there! You mustn't begin to doubt already. Till death do us
part, you know.'
'Think! I once said that to--to him, and now?' 'And now, little
sweetheart, you're not to bother about such things any more.
Of course, I never, never will, and--' And for the first time, lips
trembled against lips.
Father Roubeau had been watching the main trail through the window, but
could stand the strain no longer.
He cleared his throat and turned around.
'Your turn now, Father!' Wharton's face was flushed with the fire of
his first embrace.
There was an exultant ring to his voice as he abdicated in the other's
favor. He had no doubt as to the result. Neither had Grace, for a smile
played about her mouth as she faced the priest.
'My child,' he began, 'my heart bleeds for you. It is a pretty dream,
but it cannot be.'
'And why, Father? I have said yes.' 'You knew not what you did. You did
not think of the oath you took, before your God, to that man who is
your husband. It remains for me to make you realize the sanctity of
such a pledge.' 'And if I do realize, and yet refuse?'
'Then God'
'Which God? My husband has a God which I care not to worship. There
must be many such.' 'Child! unsay those words! Ah! you do not mean
them. I understand. I, too, have had such moments.' For an instant he
was back in his native France, and a wistful, sad-eyed face came as a
mist between him and the woman before him.
'Then, Father, has my God forsaken me? I am not wicked above women. My
misery with him has been great. Why should it be greater? Why shall I
not grasp at happiness? I cannot, will not, go back to him!' 'Rather is
your God forsaken. Return. Throw your burden upon Him, and the darkness
shall be lifted. O my child,--' 'No; it is useless; I have made my bed
and so shall I lie. I will go on. And if God punishes me, I shall bear
it somehow. You do not understand. You are not a woman.' 'My mother was
a woman.'
'But--' 'And Christ was born of a woman.' She did not answer. A silence
fell. Wharton pulled his mustache impatiently and kept an eye on the
trail. Grace leaned her elbow on the table, her face set with resolve.
The smile had died away. Father Roubeau shifted his ground.
'You have children?'
'At one time I wished--but now--no. And I am thankful.' 'And a mother?'
'Yes.' 'She loves you?' 'Yes.' Her replies were whispers.
'And a brother?--no matter, he is a man. But a sister?' Her head
drooped a quavering 'Yes.' 'Younger? Very much?' 'Seven years.' 'And
you have thought well about this matter? About them? About your mother?
And your sister? She stands on the threshold of her woman's life, and
this wildness of yours may mean much to her. Could you go before her,
look upon her fresh young face, hold her hand in yours, or touch your
cheek to hers?'
To his words, her brain formed vivid images, till she cried out,
'Don't! don't!' and shrank away as do the wolf-dogs from the lash.
'But you must face all this; and better it is to do it now.' In his
eyes, which she could not see, there was a great compassion, but his
face, tense and quivering, showed no relenting.
She raised her head from the table, forced back the tears, struggled
for control.
'I shall go away. They will never see me, and come to forget me. I
shall be to them as dead. And--and I will go with Clyde--today.' It
seemed final. Wharton stepped forward, but the priest waved him back.
'You have wished for children?' A silent 'Yes.' 'And prayed for them?'
'Often.' 'And have you thought, if you should have children?' Father
Roubeau's eyes rested for a moment on the man by the window.
A quick light shot across her face. Then the full import dawned upon
her. She raised her hand appealingly, but he went on.
'Can you picture an innocent babe in your arms? A boy? The world is not
so hard upon a girl. Why, your very breast would turn to gall! And you
could be proud and happy of your boy, as you looked on other
children?--' 'O, have pity! Hush!' 'A scapegoat--'
'Don't! don't! I will go back!' She was at his feet.
'A child to grow up with no thought of evil, and one day the world to
fling a tender name in his face. A child to look back and curse you
from whose loins he sprang!'
'O my God! my God!' She groveled on the floor. The priest sighed and
raised her to her feet.
Wharton pressed forward, but she motioned him away.
'Don't come near me, Clyde! I am going back!' The tears were coursing
pitifully down her face, but she made no effort to wipe them away.
'After all this? You cannot! I will not let you!' 'Don't touch me!' She
shivered and drew back.
'I will! You are mine! Do you hear? You are mine!' Then he whirled upon
the priest. 'O what a fool I was to ever let you wag your silly tongue!
Thank your God you are not a common man, for I'd--but the priestly
prerogative must be exercised, eh? Well, you have exercised it. Now get
out of my house, or I'll forget who and what you are!' Father Roubeau
bowed, took her hand, and started for the door. But Wharton cut them
off.
'Grace! You said you loved me?' 'I did.' 'And you do now?' 'I do.' 'Say
it again.'
'I do love you, Clyde; I do.' 'There, you priest!' he cried. 'You have
heard it, and with those words on her lips you would send her back to
live a lie and a hell with that man?'
But Father Roubeau whisked the woman into the inner room and closed the
door. 'No words!' he whispered to Wharton, as he struck a casual
posture on a stool. 'Remember, for her sake,' he added.
The room echoed to a rough knock at the door; the latch raised and
Edwin Bentham stepped in.
'Seen anything of my wife?' he asked as soon as salutations had been
exchanged.
Two heads nodded negatively.
'I saw her tracks down from the cabin,' he continued tentatively, 'and
they broke off, just opposite here, on the main trail.' His listeners
looked bored.
'And I--I thought--'
'She was here!' thundered Wharton.
The priest silenced him with a look. 'Did you see her tracks leading up
to this cabin, my son?' Wily Father Roubeau--he had taken good care to
obliterate them as he came up the same path an hour before.
'I didn't stop to look, I--' His eyes rested suspiciously on the door
to the other room, then interrogated the priest. The latter shook his
head; but the doubt seemed to linger.
Father Roubeau breathed a swift, silent prayer, and rose to his feet.
'If you doubt me, why--' He made as though to open the door.
A priest could not lie. Edwin Bentham had heard this often, and
believed it.
'Of course not, Father,' he interposed hurriedly. 'I was only wondering
where my wife had gone, and thought maybe--I guess she's up at Mrs.
Stanton's on French Gulch. Nice weather, isn't it? Heard the news?
Flour's gone down to forty dollars a hundred, and they say the
che-cha-quas are flocking down the river in droves.
'But I must be going; so good-by.' The door slammed, and from the
window they watched him take his guest up French Gulch. A few weeks
later, just after the June high-water, two men shot a canoe into
mid-stream and made fast to a derelict pine. This tightened the painter
and jerked the frail craft along as would a tow-boat. Father Roubeau
had been directed to leave the Upper Country and return to his swarthy
children at Minook. The white men had come among them, and they were
devoting too little time to fishing, and too much to a certain deity
whose transient habitat was in countless black bottles.
Malemute Kid also had business in the Lower Country, so they journeyed
together.
But one, in all the Northland, knew the man Paul Roubeau, and that man
was Malemute Kid. Before him alone did the priest cast off the
sacerdotal garb and stand naked. And why not? These two men knew each
other. Had they not shared the last morsel of fish, the last pinch of
tobacco, the last and inmost thought, on the barren stretches of Bering
Sea, in the heartbreaking mazes of the Great Delta, on the terrible
winter journey from Point Barrow to the Porcupine? Father Roubeau
puffed heavily at his trail-worn pipe, and gazed on the reddisked sun,
poised somberly on the edge of the northern horizon.
Malemute Kid wound up his watch. It was midnight.
'Cheer up, old man!' The Kid was evidently gathering up a broken thread.
'God surely will forgive such a lie. Let me give you the word of a man
who strikes a true note: If She have spoken a word, remember thy lips
are sealed, And the brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret
revealed.
If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,
Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.'
Father Roubeau removed his pipe and reflected. 'The man speaks true,
but my soul is not vexed with that. The lie and the penance stand with
God; but--but--'
'What then? Your hands are clean.' 'Not so. Kid, I have thought much,
and yet the thing remains. I knew, and made her go back.' The clear
note of a robin rang out from the wooden bank, a partridge drummed the
call in the distance, a moose lunged noisily in the eddy; but the twain
smoked on in silence.